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Everything posted by David H. Lipman

Yes. I have seen literally a few thousand and I have found malvertising URLs that will guarantee or almost guarantee a malvertisemt every time you "hit" that URL.
These Microsoft HTML.FakeAlerts are specially crafted to "abuse" the browser and draw an ever increasing amount of resources. That dogs down the computer to what appears to be quite detrimental. Sometimes you have no choice but the hit the reset button. Other times you just have to have patience for your "Ctrl-Alt-Del" Hot Key sequence to get its change so you can kill the browser process. This abuse of Browser coding is done to lend credulity to their scam.
The important thing to remember FakeAlerts ( as seen in my ScreenShow and/or videos ) emanate from the Internet. As such it is not about what software is on your PC but about what web sites you visit and one's browsing habits. For example there are certain porn sites that have a greater propensity to exhibit a FakeAlert. If you are on Windows, a Microsoft FakeAlert. If you are on an Apple iPhone or MAC, you will see an Apple FakeAlert. Then there are sites that don't care who they do business with when it comes to advertisement revenue. Or when one marketing company outsources to another. Then the malvertisement may be rotated in or randomly displayed. As I have explained in other discussions I have seen fake Mozilla Firefox malvertisements emanating from the Weather Channel web site.
There was a case where members visited AllMusic.com and on rare occasions they got a Microsoft FakeAlert. The reports were few and reproducing it was difficult but finally I was able to coax a Microsoft FakeAlert from a visitation. It was all discussed in This Thread. Reference: Post #20
Therefore, think about your Browsing habits. If its reproducible, we can get it blocked. Using Malwarebytes Browser Guard can help mitigate the receipt and actions of a FakeAlert.

Similar to these ?
I have created a 1series of videos generated from these kinds of fraud sites for the purposes of recognition and education. They are all videos from real web sites. ALL are FRAUDS.
All these have one thing in common and they have nothing to do with any software on your PC. They are all nefarious web sites meant to defraud you of money. The objective is to, falsely, goad you to make the phone call and pay for some service contract for an incident that never happened or buy some software. In the case of Tech Support scammers, they may continue to charge your Credit Card for other services, remote into your computer and do real damage and/or exfiltrate your personal data and they may use the information they obtain from you to commit additional frauds. MalwareScam.wmv MalwareScam-1.wmv MalwareScam-2.wmv MalwareScam-3.wmv MalwareScam-4.wmv MalwareScam-5.wmv MalwareScam-6.wmv
I have also created a PDF ScreenShow of a myriad of FakeAlert screens - FakeAlert-Screens.pdf / Flash Version
They are all a kind of malicious advertisement ( aka; malvertisement ).
Using Task Manager and Killing the; Edge, IExplorer, Chrome, Firefox, etc, processes is very effective once you are affected by these FakeAlerts. Right now, to block it means Malwarebytes needs to know the URL to block. If you can provide the URL it can be added to the list for Malwarebytes sites to block.
Submissions of suspect and malicious URLs can be performed in; Newest IP or URL Threats after reading; READ ME: Purpose of this forum
Malwarebytes has created new Browser Add-Ons called Malwarebytes Browser Guard for Chrome and Firefox to mitigate FakeAlerts and other frauds.
Browser Add-On references: Malwarebytes Browser Guard Malwarebytes Browser Guard Extension for Chrome Malwarebytes Browser Guard Extension for Firefox
Reference:
US FBI PSA - Tech Support Fraud
US FTC Consumer Information - Tech Support Scams
US FTC - Tech Support Operators Agree to Settle Charges by FTC and the State of Ohio
US FTC - FTC and Federal, State and International Partners Announce Major Crackdown on Tech Support Scams
Malwarebytes' Blog - Search on - "tech support scams"
Malwarebytes' Blog - "Tech support scams: help and resource page"
1. Also located at "My Online Security" - Some videos of typical tech support scams

A VPN is the way to go.
It creates a virtual tunnel between your PC and the VPN Provider's network.
You connect to the Hilton Hotel's network and then initiate the VPN. Subsequently all your traffic will be routed through and tunneled within the VPN connection and will emanate from the VPN Provider's network out to the Internet Web sites will see the VPN Internet Address ( IP Address ) not the Hotel's IP address. The Hotel personnel and other guests can not snoop on your activities. Assuming they tried, they would just see that you have a encrypted tunnel to the VPN Provider.

Since there is no Font function in the Toolbar, the Font BBCode was all that was left. If Invision will no longer support the Font BBCode, then please add a Font Function to the Editor Toolbar.
Xiexie ni Alex.

This is purely a scam and they send those emails out en masse hoping one or two bite at the bait.
Just delete the email and then change your email password to a new Strong Password just to make sure.
Additionally, you can enter your email address(es) in the following site and it will check to see if that email address was part of a known breach. This is most likely how they obtained the password and used it in the email to lend credulity to the scam.
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Please reference:
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US FBI PSA - Extortionists Increasingly Using Recipients' Personal Information To Intimidate Victims
US FTC Consumer Information - How to avoid a Bitcoin blackmail scam
MyOnlinesecurity - attempted-blackmail-scam-watching-porn
BleepingComputer - Beware of Extortion Scams Stating They Have Video of You on Adult Sites
Malwarebytes' Blog - Sextortion emails: They’re probably not watching you
Malwarebytes Forum sample thread - Got strange threating email.
Malwarebytes Forum FYI thread - FYI: Email Blackmail Scam still current

Is is a justified detection... https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/2268e0f59b605ff74656c553658e5c17b3e046370f6ca3032764caaacb582934/detection
Download FileZilla here at; https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?show_all=1
to download non-sponsored installers that do NOT include Adware.